


Standard-Issue

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Deadlock McCree, Gen, Implied Past Child Abuse, Interrogation, Recruitment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: There has been a complication with the interrogations, Morrison had said. That should have been easy enough to deal with, half of Reyes' job (as far as he was concerned) was fixing Morrison's "complications" for him. What he actually walked in on was not what he was expecting and by god he is going to kill Jack for saddling him with this particular petulant, cowboy-hat-wearing complication.-Look everyone's written a McCree recruitment story and I wanted to have a go at it because I love gruff, grumbling, reluctantly affectionate Reyes





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is 100% nothing original or exciting but I was cleaning out my WIP folder and figured there was no point letting it rot on my computer so I might as well post it

“Gabe.”

Reyes looked up from his paperwork – a covert operation turn firefight turn a veritable slew of dead bodies had a way of then turning into a veritable slew of reports – to see Jack Morrison blacking his doorway. Golden Boy looked haggard, but that wasn't much surprising either. There had been over a dozen casualties on their side, and though most were slated to make a full-recovery, seven lay dead. Jack seemed to feel each death under his command like it was his ribs the gun had been shoved under, took each one like a personal failing. Some would argue that feeling like that made a good man; Reyes would argue that it made a piss poor military commander. It was all well and good to look out for your people – god help the bastard that tried to mess with Reyes' forces – but the dead were dead and Reyes strove to find comfort knowing that the body count was an easy three-to-one. Deadlock was in shambles and scattered like goddamn roaches after that raid. Once they had the last bit of intel they needed about their hidey-holes and communication network clean up would be a breeze.

“I can't be the only one on this base with work to do,” Reyes groused, turning his back to Jack to return to his work. “Or at least I damn well better not be.”

Jack didn't move, but also didn't enter Reyes' space which Gabriel considered a win.

“There's been... complications with the interrogations,” Jack said.

Of fucking course there has been. Reyes isn't sure if he wants to laugh or groan and settles for neither because he's a goddamn professional surrounded by idiots. Not that he should have expected anything less when Jack was left in charge of the interrogations – truth be told, he'd been expecting to be called in sooner or later. Oh, Jack could talk good game, and in a good interrogation, sometimes that was all you needed. When Jack Morrison used what Reyes thought of, less than affectionately, as his Commander Voice, the world quaked. Damn, there was no denying it, he _sounded_ like a noble leader when he used that Voice. Could make you feel like you could pick up the entire damn planet in your arms and shake the bad out of it when he wanted, could make you feel guilty like you standing there was against regulations when he was displeased, and could make a soul cower when he used that Voice to strike straight through your heart. If someone could embody the sentiment of “I'm not mad I'm disappointed” and then arm it with fucking assault rifles, it was Jack Morrison. Unfortunately, as far as interrogations went, his skill-set sharply ended with talking.

“Don't see why you need to make it complicated,” Reyes grumbled. “When you say you're gonna break their goddamn knuckles if the don't talk, you then break their goddamn knuckles when they don't talk. Carry the fuck through, Morrison.” But no, Golden Boy couldn't do that. Couldn't get his squeaky clean hands dirty. That was what Gabriel Reyes was for.

“It's not that,” Jack said. “They had cyanide capsules.”

“ _Fuck_.”

Now Reyes had spun fully in his seat to stare Jack down, as if looking at him could reveal the lie. Of course there was no lie though, of course, fuck, how could they not have even guessed at that? Because the three sad scruffs of outlaws they'd picked up looked like the sort of vultures that would pick their friend's clean if it suited them? Because they looked like easy breaks that would be singing before supper? Reyes could hit himself. He'd had the dubious pleasure of learning more about Deadlock in the past few months than anyone could ever want to know and suicidally stupidity was exactly how they would like their members. Twist them so full of drugs they couldn't tell up from down, starve 'em and then stuff 'em full of food til they're sick and grateful, give 'em a splash of water to make the desert seem less harsh and a fistful of coins to make empty pockets rattle. Fuck with a desperate head until it was either fucking loyal or fucking dead, then make sure the rest knew that a lack of the former lead to an abundance of the latter. If he'd considered for even a moment that they might have this level of sophistication he'd have had medical deal with that before it became a problem.

“So all of that was for nothing,” Reyes said through grit teeth. Not nothing, he tried to remind himself. Three-to-one. They'd come out on top and Deadlock was crumbling. Even without additional intel, the clean up could and would happen. It was getting distinctly harder to bear that in mind.

“Not quite. We'd only gotten around to interrogating two at first, and they pulled it off only once they realized there was no way out except information and a reduced jail sentence if they were lucky.” Jack leaned heavily against the doorframe, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “First one seemed keen enough, had the nerve to stare me down and laugh. Second one I wasn't there for, it was happening in the other room, but apparently she was a might jumpier about it. Probably didn't expect to need it when they shoved it in her mouth. Only bit down when Daniels got too close.”

“And the third?”

Jack gave a wan smile. “We'd cottoned on at that point. Had it pried outta his mouth before he knew what was happening.”

Reyes drooped back in his chair with relief. Only one subject to interrogate was hardly ideal, it meant everything had to go perfectly, but he knew how to run an interrogation to make sure it went _perfectly_. “So we're still in business.”

“Yeah... But there has been... another complication.”

“Did someone cut his damn tongue out?” Reyes asked testily.

“Well, no...”

“Will it stop the bastard singing his story when I get my hands on him?”

“No.”

“Then there's no damn complications, Morrison.” Reyes shoved himself out of his chair and shoved past Jack into the hall. Time for an expert to take over.

“If you say so, Gabe.”

“I do,” he huffed, and marched down to the interrogation holding rooms without a backwards glance. They had seven dead soldiers, more yet injured, and Reyes fully intended to have retribution in the form of every little bit of information this _cabr_ _ó_ _n_ had in his heat-scorched little brain.

Reyes slammed into the interrogation room without bothering for preamble – he was tall, bulky with muscle and gear, and knew he had an expression that could make seasoned soldiers want to scamper back and he didn't bother wasting any of that. He was damn intimidating and he knew it.

“So,” he snarled, voice loud to be heard over the door crashing shut behind him, “you just made a big mistake. You just decided you didn't want to talk to the good cop–” And Reyes knew that if Jack had been at all serious in here, then there was little chance that the captive was thinking of Jack as “good” in anyway, and Reyes was happy to let him stew on what that meant _he_ was going to be like. “–so now you get me.”

His hands slammed down on the table hard enough to make the captive jump, staring up at Reyes with wide, wild eyes like Reyes was a goddamn monster marched straight out of his nightmares. It meant Reyes also got his first good look at the little shit.

It took all of Reyes self-control not to immediately look back towards the door to make sure Jack wasn't standing there laughing at him. Surely this was a fucking joke.

There was a goddamn kid in his interrogation room.

“Ain't tellin' you shit,” the kid mumbled obstinately. His voice was thick, which might've been from the split lip that was colouring half his face or might've been from the fact he'd just had one of his teeth yanked out to get at his cyanide capsule.

Shit, who was giving scrawny kids cyanide capsules? Who the fuck was giving scrawny kids fucking guns and telling them to kill themselves the second someone threatened the piece of shit organization that gave them the guns and poison in the first place?

Well, the Deadlock gang, that was who. Reyes tried to remind himself that it wasn't just a scrawny kid kid sitting in front of him, but a full-on gang member for a ruthless organization and who had very likely been involved in the death of his people.

It was real damn hard though when the kid looked like a scared jackrabbit desperate to bolt, too much limb and eye for him to possibly know what to do with.

“How old are you?” Reyes demanded. It wasn't a standard interrogation question, normally Reyes couldn't care less, but right now he needed to know.

The kid kept his mouth shut, so with one hand planted firmly on the table Reyes leaned in real close so the kid had no choice but to look at him.

“You really wanna start being stubborn _now_? Might serve you better to save that up for when things start to get real hard.”

“M'twenty-two,” the kid said.

“Ha. Try again.”

This response took longer, but finally the kid muttered, “Seventeen.”

Reyes took a step back and crossed his arms, surveying the kid. Because he was a professional, he looked for all the world like the ruthless, calculating menace he was meant to be in here. But he would be lying if he didn't admit he was panicking a bit. There was a seventeen year old kid with wrists so bony the cuffs attaching him to the table barely looked like they fit and were rubbing the jutting bones red raw and who'd had a cyanide capsule jammed up into his mouth. There was a seventeen year old kid in here who was a murderer, and suddenly it felt less like a condemnation and more like a pit of pure, nauseating horror that'd been tossed into Reyes' gut.

“And what's a seventeen year old brat doing running with a gang like Deadlock?” Reyes asked.

The kid kept his mouth locked. Reyes didn't sigh but it was a near thing. In a normal interrogation, at this point, he'd have probably back handed the kid just to let him know Reyes meant business and that there were consequences for not answering questions. This was not a normal interrogation.

Switching tactics, Reyes said, “We got your guns, you realize that right?”

He strolled around kid, who kept his head stubbornly down, chin pressed against his chest, but Reyes could see the way he flinched each time he heard Reyes voice coming from somewhere out of his sight. You got all sorts in an interrogation room when you were the commander of Blackwatch, and learnt a whole arsenal of different techniques. Some people were the grease-coated fat cats that never expected anything to lead back to them and didn't think anything could touch them. They didn't know to be scared and Reyes hardly had to lift a finger to have most of them spewing their guts – preferably metaphorically, but not always. This kid wasn't like that. He knew damn well to be afraid and there wasn't a doubt in Reyes' mind that he'd been _given_ damn good reasons in the past to be scared of big-fisted, angry men standing behind him. Reyes felt his blood boil, but not at the kid.

“We got your guns and we're gonna see exactly where your bullets match up. Maybe you were just an unfortunate witness, some scared, wet-eared brat that didn't know better. Still not gonna be too nice for you, kid, 'cause you're running with a real bad set. Drug charges, first-degree murder, kidnapping, you name it. You're gonna be an accessory at the very least and that's assuming we don't dig anything else up. And kid,” he said, so close to his ear that Reyes could see his shoulders tense up, “we are damn good at digging. But maybe, maybe you don't get so lucky. Maybe one of your bullets was unlucky enough to have nicked one of my people. I don't take kindly to that, and that gentleman in here before me? He _really_ don't. Judges don't much either, not when you go shooting up the big damn heroes. And maybe it gets worse. Maybe, by the hand of a real Old Testament, vengeful sort of God, one of your bullets is buried in our dead. Maybe your hand shook a bit too much and one of your little accidents just made you a murderer.” Reyes was standing full in front of him now. “Penalty for that is life in max, kid. No judge would be arguing, not when it's Overwatch agents being buried and mourned. And your kind doesn't do so well in a place like that, kid.”

The kid wasn't shaking any more, but he was still staring down at the table with big, dead eyes. Like he saw exactly what Reyes did for his future.

“Well?” Reyes barked, making the kid jump hard. “Nothing to say to that?”

The kid finally looked up, but there was a sudden fire back in his eyes. “Wouldn't've been no accident,” the kid spat, and Reyes was taken aback by the audacity. Wondered what sort of loyalties this kid actually had for Deadlock, what sort of pride he had for it. Wondered what was used to beat that into him, sticks or warm meals.

“You're real bad at getting all the wrong answers, aren't you, kid?” said Reyes, voice low and dangerous, but the kid held his ground even though Reyes could see the way his chest of was fluttering with panic.

What did he do next? That was the real question here. Jack's problem was he was never willing to follow through; that wasn't a problem Reyes had or one he could allow himself to have. He was a person of conviction at the best of times, but in this room he made no move without the full weight of his decision behind it. But he wasn't sure how far he was willing to take that right now. Now when he was being stared down by some kid with bruised eyes and blood in his hair and too much loyalty to a group that would suck the marrow out of his bones and spit him out the second he ran dry. They needed the information this kid had – or might have, who the fuck was going to tell some seventeen year old sensitive information? Then again, who gave a seventeen year old a gun and trusted him to use it – but the idea of hitting him left a bad taste in his mouth, and while Reyes was pretty good with words he doubted this boy's will was going to break easily. So he took the only avenue that was currently available to him.

“I'm gonna give you a chance to think real hard about what the right answer to that question might be, kid, and when I come back I expect to hear it. Understand me?”

“Fuck you,” the boy hissed.

Reyes didn't bother to dignify that with a response. He walked calmly and coolly back to the door, which he closed behind him with a snap.

And then promptly slumped against the wall.

 _A complication_ , Jack had said. He was going to fucking kill Jack Morrison.

-

He found Jack in the office that was placed at the end of the hall of interrogation- and holding-rooms, an office specifically made for meetings about this sort of thing.

Well, not exactly this sort of thing because Gabriel Reyes had never had a goddamn seventeen year old in his interrogation room before.

Jack looked up when Reyes entered, expression drawn, with Törbjorn, Reinhardt, and Ana sitting with him.

“Well?” Jack asked, sounding weary.

“Seventeen, Jack!” Reyes snapped, refusing to come in full and sit down like this was one more ordinary meeting. “You gave me a goddamn kid!”

“He's hardly some innocent though, is he?” Törbjorn huffed from where he was sitting, with a nod of approval from Reinhardt.

Reyes could scream, but settled for tugging his hat off and running his fingers agitatedly through his sweaty hair.

“Come, sit,” Ana advised. “Torby has information about the ballistics from the kid's gun.”

With no energy left to argue it, Reyes sat heavily down on the couch next to Ana.

“Let's hear it.” He hadn't been lying in there, if the kid was unlucky, even just injuring on of their people will mean bad things for him.

“Four,” Törbjorn huffed. When Reyes didn't respond, he through the files he was carrying over to him. “Bullet marks from his gun match four of our dead.”

Reyes gaped. Honest-to-god, open-mouthed gawked at Törbjorn.

“Did anyone else–?”

“No,” said Jack quickly. “Angela has assured us everyone else is in the clear. There were only original seven deaths. Four of those were his.”

“Clean as you could ask too,” Törbjorn continued, jerking a thumb at his own forehead. “In and out. They'd've been dead before they hit the ground.”

Reyes ran a heavy hand down his face. A part of him wanted to believe that someone else must have been using the gun and foisted it into the kid's holster at the last minute, no way such a scrawny piece of shit could've made four headshots against trained agents in a firefight like that. The rest of that gang would have been lucky to knock dust in their eyes with the way they were shooting. But the kid's voice echoed in his head. _Wouldn't've been no accident_ , he'd said.

Fuck.

“Did you learn what we needed, my friend?” Reinhardt asked, turning to Reyes. “The sooner we have the information we need, the sooner we can strike again and avenge our fallen.”

“I want to keep him.” The words were out of his mouth before he'd even realized he was thinking them. Gabriel Reyes, who never acted without conviction, was startled by his own realization but faced down the rest of the room with a set face. “For Blackwatch,” he amended. “If he can shoot like that under those conditions, I want him.”

“You're joking–” started Törbjorn.

“Gabe...” said Ana.

“He is a _murderer_!” Reinhardt thundered. “A gangster!”

“With a better eye than half the people under my command from the sounds of it,” said Reyes coolly. “That's skill I want shooting for us, not against us.”

“What even makes you think he would be willing to abandon Deadlock?” Ana asked. “You've seen how they can be, it'll take more than you asking nicely.”

“Since when do I ever ask nicely?” Reyes returned testily. He didn't want this argument, he _knew_ what the argument was. He was currently having it with himself.

“That's true,” Törbjorn muttered. “You're mad if you don't think he'd shoot us in our beds

“Look,” Reyes snapped, “a kid like that ends up where he is when there's nothing better. Given what his options are, I'm about to offer better. He'll shape up if he knows what's good for him.” And this was a kid that knew how to survive. He'd shape up, Reyes would bet money on it.

He'd better be willing to do at least that, since if he actually carried through on this mad plan he may very well be betting his life on it.

They all turned to Jack though, beseeching Strike Commander Morrison to put his subordinate back in his place, but fuck him. Reyes felt like his very bones were on fire and all of a sudden, for no reason he could possibly explain except that he never wanted to imagine that stupid, bony kid matching his bruises with prison orange, he was prepared to fight for the kid. He was _his_. He was sitting in Reyes' damn interrogation room and Reyes would be damned if Deadlock or the judicial system or some lowlife in max got their hands on this boy. Jack just stared at him though, as if sizing him up, sizing up the fight that was about to come (because good god, if there was one thing him and Jack were good at it was fighting until the entire damn base rattled around them), before he just nodded.

“I'm not sure I like it, but if you want him in Blackwatch it's you're call, Gabe. He'd hardly be the first person we've recruited under unusual circumstance.”

“Wha– you _can't_ be serious–” Törbjorn started but Jack didn't let him finish.

“I trust Gabe to be able to handle one kid. And if he doesn't prove trustworthy, I trust Gabe to be able to handle that too–”

“He killed our comrades,” Reinhardt remind them all softly, voice not quite contrary though, more contemplative.

“He did,” Ana agreed sharply, before sighing. “But where is the line between a cold-blooded murderer and child doing what he was told? The thought of a kid being drawn so early into a life of death that such skills could come so naturally to him...”

Reyes mind flashed abruptly to Fareeha. Ana tried to keep her as far from Overwatch as possible but sometimes it wasn't all that possible at all. Not when Ana spent so many hours working, not when Fareeha was so enraptured by it all. She was a pest to have around base, have no doubts – she seemed to delight in trailing at Reyes' coattails, pestering him to tell her about what he was working on, the missions he'd gone on recently, what her mother was doing, anything. But if anything happened to her, well. Maybe he wasn't the only one suddenly thinking about the little girl either because the indecision on Reinhardt's face seemed to settle and even Törbjorn gave a defeated huff.

“Do what needs to be done,” Jack said. “I'll look into the paperwork.”

-

When Reyes entered the interrogation room it was much more subdued than last time. It carried no less authority, but Reyes simply walked in, shut the door, and made his way to the table where he sat down firmly on the other side. He placed an empty glass and a jug of water down in front of him and watched the boy's eyes immediately go from him to that, tongue darting out across chapped lips. The desert was no hospitable mistress, especially not when the sun was beating down and a fight had stirred the dust thick into the air, and it had been some time now since the boy had been placed in here. While the kid watched the water, Reyes took stock of the kid, with a very different eye than before. He was no longer examining a captive, trying to decide what he knew and how he'd break, but a possible recruit.

If this were a normal candidate at his door, Reyes would have already laughed and sent him packing, but right now Reyes saw crude potential glimmering from every awkward angle of this boy. Hungry eyes, desperate, but he'd already seen the fire that could fill them. Knew he had least had some idea of loyalty if he hadn't already spilled his guts. His fingers were scratched up from where they had undoubtedly been clawing at the handcuffs secured to the table in Reyes' absence and his bony wrists were bleeding sluggishly now to confirm that theory, but the hands themselves were steady. Broad hands already, and he'd grow into them, they'd be strong soon. Body looked the same. Underfed, more dust than skin, and hidden under the ugliest assortment of clothes you could ask for (plaid shirt with the sleeves torn off and the edges ragged, showing off a Deadlock tattoo on his left arm, a belt buckle that was probably as big as his palm, and entirely too much jean to be allowed on one person), but there was a wiry strength to him, and a tension coiled in him right now that Reyes would like to see pushed into motion. And there was still fight in him, even under the bruises, and that was something you couldn't train. No matter how much you yelled at a recruit, no matter how many drills you made them run, you couldn't train someone to face a no-win situation with the determination to make it out again.

“If you think I'm gonna start squealing just because you brought some water, you've got another thing coming,” the kid snapped. “I'm no snitch.”

“Why so loyal? They don't give a shit about you,” Reyes said. “You're cannon fodder.”

“That's not–!” the boy started before he seemed to realize he'd let Reyes get a rise out of him; he dropped his head immediately back down and flexed his fists. “That's not true, you don't know shit. I'm valuable to 'em.”

“What, 'cause you can shoot? They don't give a fuck, kid. You might've been useful, but now you're not. Now, you're a liability, sitting here with me, telling me anything.

“I wouldn't–”

“They don't care. You're gone. You think they're going to try to rescue you? Mourn you?” The kid's knuckles were white now. “You think the sort of people that send a kid into a firefight give a damn if that kid lives or dies?”

“I'm not telling you shit,” the kid said, but his voice sounded thin, hoarse.

“What's your name, kid?”

He stayed silent.

“What if I told you you had a choice here?”

The kid peeked upwards through his shaggy brown hair. Expression just maybe daring to be hopeful.

Reyes continued, ticking them off on his fingers. “One, you keep your trap shut, still well and truly loyal to those bastards that beat you up and made your life hell and told you to be grateful they weren't worse–” Reyes had hit the mark, he could tell in the way the kid flinched, the anger simmering behind those eyes. Some of those bruises were way to old to have been from the raid. “–and as thanks you face charges for five murders – yup, we've got more than enough evidence at this point. That goes through and after a few months of having your pathetic little ass dragged through a media spotlight, having your name spat on by everyone watching, then you stay in jail til you're old and grey.

“Two. You talk. You tell me every damn thing I want to know, you 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' me like I'm the key to your salvation 'cause guess what kid I damn well am. You play nice and we play nice. Oh, you still go to jail in this scenario, but if you're real lucky and you make it out alive you might actually see daylight again. You'll be older and the world's gonna have moved on and you'll be on your own, but you just might get to walk free again.

“Now, option number three. You get to walk away from all of this.” The boy was staring openly at him now. “I don't know what shit brought you to Deadlock, kid, and I don't care. But you're got a gift and right now, you're wasting it, and you're wasting yourself. You think you don't deserve better than that?”

“What are you saying?” the kid asked.

“I'm saying, you have one choice, right now, to walk away from it all with me. We'll patch you up, get you your kit, and set you up with a proper paycheck.”

“You're offering me a job.”

“I'm offering you a life.”

The kid just stared down at the table, stared down at his hands still locked to the table. Maybe from the corner of his eyes stared at the water. Anywhere but Reyes.

Reyes leaned back in his seat. “If you think this opportunity is gonna wait for you, kid, you've got another thing coming. I've got better things to do than sit in here with your scrawny ass. You make this choice, and you make it now.”

“I don't...”

“Make. Your. Choice.”

“ _Fuck you_.” And... and he thought the kid might actually be crying. Reyes resisted the urge to crane his neck to check. Fuck, he stormed in here like fucking doomsday and the kid just huffed and glowered, now he comes in here and gives him an actual chance and this is what he gets? Damn ingrate.

He gave it a couple more minutes and when the kid just kept his head down, snuffling, Reyes pushed his chair back with a loud scrape and stood up. “Fine, if you've got nothing to say I'm not gonna let you waste my time.”

He had gotten as far as setting his hand on the door before the boy cried after him, “McCree! It's McCree!”

Reyes turned back to face him, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. The boy was staring at him, face open and vulnerable under the hair.

“My name is Jesse McCree,” he said. “I– I'll join your team. Whatever it is, whatever you want, I'll do it. Sir.”

Reyes paused a moment longer, as if deliberating, before finally deciding to let the boy off the hook. He walked up, pulled a key from one of his pockets, and undid the kids hand cuffs. They were barely off before Jesse McCree yanked his hands back, rubbing his wrists tenderly. He didn't jump off the chair but it looked like a near thing; if Reyes wasn't looming and looking capable of dragging him back by the scruff of his neck he might have.

“Right, listen up, kid,” Reyes barked, making the McCree sit up sharply in his seat. “From this point on, I'm your commanding officer and you will listen to me, and only me. You will train with the rest of the recruits, and you will prove to me that you're worth this effort. In a moment, you're going to get assigned a room, which you will be expected to keep presentable, standard issue clothes, then you're going to go down to showers, clean yourself up. Follow me,” he added when McCree didn't immediately move when Reyes started walking towards the door.

Casting one last longing glance towards the water, McCree trotted after him and down the hall. Reyes could see Jack and the others staring out at them as they passed the office but he ignored them.

“As soon as you look halfway presentable you're going to report to medical, you're going to do whatever the doctors tell you, and then once you're finished there you're going to report at 1900h to the mess hall for dinner. Be on time or you'll be begging the kitchen staff for your supper. Is that understood?”

“What, really?”

Reyes rounded on him sharply enough that McCree, who was half jogging to keep up with Reyes' longer, faster strides, nearly bowled into him.

“Yes, really,” Reyes said. “If you don't think you can follow orders, then this is the wrong place for you.”

“No,” McCree yelped, backtracking. “Nope, no sir, no problems with orders.” Reyes _seriously_ doubted that, and was sure he'd see exactly what this little shit of a seventeen year old considered appropriate conduct, but that'd hardly be new. Sometimes he wondered if he was a commander in an actual military organization or a babysitter, especially when he found himself spending any length of time with Oxton or Ziegler. “Just... I haven't exactly done anything yet,” he said.

“What's your point?”

“...Dinner?”

Now Reyes was beginning to see where this was going but it did nothing to quench the fire simmering under his skin or his hatred of Deadlock. Playing dumb, Reyes turned on his heels and returned to his march across the base.

“Dinner, as I said, will be at 1900h on the dot, every night. You will be given a schedule that includes all meal times as well as a training schedule and any other important appointments. You are expected to be on time for all of it.” Because Reyes will be damned if he doesn't fill this kid up until his clothes stop looking like they're going to droop right off him. He was no good if he couldn't even hold a gun in his twiggy arms.

McCree must have caught on, or else his survival instinct kicked in because he crowed, “Yes, _sir_ ,” with such a shit-eater's grin that he couldn't even be called remotely professional.

“This will be your room,” Reyes said, throwing the door open of a barrack room he knew was empty.

McCree walked in, smile growing as he admired it. Not much to admire as far as Reyes was concerned; it was a bare room with a bed shoved in one corner, a desk, a dresser, and a locker in the corner for equipment or valuables. The window didn't look over much except on of the training fields, meaning the view was mostly a muddy brown. But it seemed to be enough to impress Jesse McCree.

“Someone will bring you your new clothes in a moment. The showers are at the end of the hall. Do you have any other questions?” Reyes asked.

“Yeah, sure, one more thing. Sir,” he said. “Any chance I could get my hat back?”

“Your hat.”

“Yeah. Real distinct, you can't miss it.” He made a gesture round his head. “Big brimmed, brown, cowboy hat. Some bastard nicked it off me when they locked me up.”

“You have a cowboy hat,” said Reyes.

“Yes, sir.”

Of course he did. Reyes pinched the bridge of his nose; he was half tempted to tell him to damn that hat, that he was lucky to be walking free right now and to be _grateful_.  Of course the kid would've been grateful if Reyes had let him have a glass of that water before marching him off the hangman's noose.  He'd probably been grateful when Deadlock thugs kicked his teeth in 'cause it was better than being left to starve alone and friendless in the desert.

So instead he said, “I'll see what I can do.”

-

The hat was delivered shortly after, on top of a stack neatly folded, standard-issue fatigues.

-

It really shouldn't have been a surprise then when Reyes, sitting once more in his office, was once again interrupted though this time rather than a dismayed Jack Morrison he was greeted by the sight of a smirking Ana Amari.  Arguably worse, definitely more dangerous; at least this time he hadn't been getting any work done anyway. He refused to be seen hovering around that kid, it wasn't like he needed Reyes to hold his knife and fork while he ate his supper, and so it was with as much dignity as he could muster that he stared at his reports and pretended to focus on them rather than on ignoring Jesse McCree. If anything, Ana was a rather welcome distraction, though he still narrowed his eyes suspiciously as she entered his room and tossed herself down on an open chair.

“Just saw your kid in the mess, Gabe,” she said.

Quite suddenly Gabriel Reyes saw the future stretching out in front of him and it was a future that involved, as of this moment, every damn person in this place considering Jesse McCree to be solely his responsibility no matter if he kept distance or not.  He kept his face level, experience telling him that now would not be the time to reveal that particular realization or the panic that accompanied it.

“My recruit,” he corrected instead, without infliction.  It was a failed effort though, because Ana just grinned broader and leaned across his desk, her chin in her hands.

“Of course,” she agreed easily.  “I just saw him in the mess. Boy has a good appetite on him. And I like his hat.  It's... quite charming, though not quite regulation.”

“If he wants to make himself look like a clown, that's his business,” Reyes mumbled.

“Oh, I agree," said Ana.  “Don't doubt that, I'm only rather surprised you do because I do recall seeing you shooting that toque of Suttleridge's straight off his head when he was wearing it last month.”

Reyes worked to keep his face steady but he could feel the way the muscles in his cheek twitched under the strain. It was moments like this you suddenly recalled that Ana also happened to be Captain Amari, one of the greatest snipers - and therefore best eyes - in Overwatch, if not the world. She was often followed with the vague impression that she could see straight down to the murky depths of your soul.

“Regulation says black or dark grey,” he said evenly.  “Agent Suttleridge's was green.”

“Ah, of course. Still, I do find its sometimes best to accept there's no reasoning with some people, so I'm glad to see you're adopting that attitude as well. Just look at my Fareeha. Lena bought her that ridiculous little Biggles cap of hers, with the goggles, you remember? Wasn't able to get her out of it for weeks. But still, she looked cute so I suppose there wasn't much of a point in arguing either. Best just to indulge kids sometimes, wouldn't you say? Whatever makes them happy. Sometimes a bit of happiness is an important thing, right along with a hot meal, a good bed, and a friend.”

“I'm not sure I'm appreciating the comparison you're drawing,” Reyes said carefully.

“What comparison would that be, Gabe? I'm sure I'm not drawing a comparison. I've never drawn a comparison in my life.”

Gabriel Reyes stared her down, but there was really not fighting with a grin like that turned against you, so in the end Reyes did something he very rarely ever did: he surrendered.

“Did the damn kid eat his vegetables?”


End file.
